The Nomination

by William G. Tapply

  “I’m sorry, Li An,” Eddie said.

  “You killed her,” she said again. “Why did you have to kill her?” Simone realized she was crying. She closed her eyes, seeking her calm place. “Why? Why did you do that, Eddie? Jill never did anything to you. What do you want?”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about old times, Li An,” he said. “We used to be friends.”

  Simone found herself nodding through her tears. “Friends,” she said. “Yes.”

  “Remember?” he said. “The four of us? We had a lot of fun, huh?” He shrugged. “Oh, well. Things have a way of changing, don’t they?”

  And Simone watched as Eddie Moran raised the little square silver gun and pointed it at her chest.

  CHAPTER 17

  At eight o’clock on Tuesday morning, Roberto Martinez pulled into the driveway, parked next to Jill Rossiter’s Wagoneer, climbed out, and went around to the back of his old Dodge pickup. He dropped the tailgate and laid out the pair of two-by-twelve planks for the ramp. Then he hoisted himself up into the truck bed and backed his John Deere lawn tractor down the two planks.

  He looked at his watch. Right on time. The ladies liked to have the section around the deck finished by nine so they could enjoy the outdoors in the morning without the racket of the tractor.

  He topped off the gas, climbed onto the seat, got the mower started, and began cutting the side lawn. Usually Ms. Rossiter, the blonde lady, Jill, she came out and waved to him while he was mowing. She always left a pitcher of lemonade or a glass of juice or a cold Coke on the deck for him.

  Sometimes Jill would push Ms. Bonet out in her wheelchair as he was finishing up the side section, and Ms. Bonet would wave and smile. Roberto felt bad about her disease. When he first started working for her, she’d been an energetic, fun-loving person. Now she needed the wheelchair to get around, and she seemed sad most of the time.

  The grass was growing fast. This time of year, especially with all the rain they’d been getting, many of Roberto’s customers wanted to be mowed twice a week. But the ladies said once a week was plenty, which was fine by him. So he showed up every Tuesday morning at eight o’clock. He mowed the grass and trimmed the edges, and if Jill had anything else for him, he did it. She liked tending the gardens herself, but sometimes she wanted him to spread some mulch in the flowerbeds or cart away some dead branches or bags of leaves. Roberto kept the fruit trees pruned and fertilized and, in general, looked after their yard.

  Roberto Martinez’s grandfather had started up his little landscaping business to serve some of the old Catskill resorts. When the resorts closed down, he’d kept the business alive by taking care of wealthy people’s yards.

  Roberto didn’t think Jill Rossiter and Ms. Bonet were particularly wealthy. But they had a nice place, and they didn’t mind paying him to keep it looking good.

  He finished mowing the side lawn a little before nine. Jill still hadn’t come out onto the deck to wave and smile and leave something to drink. He hoped she wasn’t sick or something. Ms. Bonet needed Jill to take care of her.

  He finished the mowing and did the trimming. By then it was about quarter after eleven.

  He needed to know if they had anything else they wanted him to do today. Usually Jill came out on the deck to tell him, but he hadn’t seen her. So he went to the front door and rang the bell. When Jill didn’t come to the door, he started to get a bad feeling. It didn’t make any sense. She had to be home. Her Wagoneer was right there in the driveway.

  Roberto started imagining terrible things. Jill slipping in the shower and banging her head, or falling down the stairs and breaking her leg, or getting food poisoning or something, not being able to take care of Ms. Bonet, needing help herself. Maybe both ladies were bedridden with the flu, and Ms. Bonet, without Jill to bring her medicine or water or to help her to the bathroom, was stranded in her bed or her wheelchair.

  He walked all the way around the house and tried to peer in through the windows. The shades were drawn in the bedrooms. There was no sign of life in the living room or kitchen or on the sunporch. The house had that empty, deserted feeling.

  He ended up on the deck. It didn’t look like anybody was home. He supposed there were plenty of good explanations. Except in the nine years that Roberto Martinez had been taking care of their place, Jill and Ms. Bonet had been there every single Tuesday morning. Not once did he find them not home, even back in the time before Ms. Bonet was in her wheelchair.

  He tried the door that opened from the deck into the sunporch. It was unlocked. Roberto was quite sure that if the ladies had gone away for a few days, they’d have locked up the house.

  He poked his head inside and said, “Hello? Jill? Are you home?”

  He waited, and when Jill didn’t appear and nobody called back to him, he yelled louder. “Jill? Ms. Rossiter? Ms. Bonet? Are you there? Hello? Is everything all right?”

  He hesitated. He didn’t feel right about walking into somebody’s house, even people he knew as well as he knew the ladies. But now he was definitely worried, and he felt that it would be irresponsible of him to just drive away. He’d feel terrible if both ladies were really sick or if Jill had had an accident or something. If they needed help, Roberto should give it to them.

  So he stepped inside. He called their names again. No answer. He moved from the sunporch into the kitchen. He saw no evidence that the ladies had had breakfast. No juice glasses or cereal bowls in the sink. No coffee in the electric coffeemaker. Jill always had a coffee mug in her hand in the morning.

  He called “Hello?” once more, and when there still was no answer, he went down the short hallway to the bedrooms.

  The first one was empty. Judging by the clothes that had been dropped on the floor, this was Jill’s room. The bed had been slept in. The covers were thrown back as if she had gotten up suddenly. As if there had been some kind of emergency, Roberto thought. His mind was now swirling with all kinds of terrible scenarios.

  He found both ladies in the other bedroom. Jill was lying on her side on the floor beside the bed, as if she’d toppled sideways off the chair and gone to sleep right there.

  Ms. Bonet was in a half-sitting position in her bed. Her head was slumped on her chest. A big dark blotch covered the front of her.

  Roberto Martinez stood there looking at them. It took a minute before he comprehended what he was seeing.

  He swallowed back the bile that rose up in his throat. Then he took a deep breath, crossed himself, mumbled, “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” and went for the telephone.

  WHEN MAC GOT home from the post office on Tuesday afternoon, Katie met him at the back door.

  He took one look at her face and said, “What’s the matter, honey?”

  “You had a phone call. Some sheriff from New York. Sullivan County. That’s where Simone and Jill live. He said he had to talk to you. He said it was important. He wouldn’t tell me what he wanted.”

  “Did he leave a number?”

  Katie nodded and handed Mac a slip of paper.

  “I’ll call him right now,” he said.

  He went into the kitchen, took the phone off the hook, and pecked out the number Katie had given him. He sat at the kitchen table as it rang. Katie sat across from him. She put her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. She was watching Mac with big, solemn eyes.

  On the third ring someone picked up and said, “Norris. Who’s this?”

  “It’s Mac Cassidy, returning your call. Is this the sheriff?”

  “It is,” he said. “Sheriff Roland Norris. Appreciate you getting back to me, Mr. Cassidy. We’ve got ourselves a situation here, and—”

  “Where’s here?” said Mac.

  “Township of Beaverkill. Sullivan County, New York.” He cleared his throat. “We appear to be looking at a double suicide here, sir, or more accurately, a murder-suicide, and we found a business card with your name on it tacked up here beside the telephone, and we were wondering—”

  “Wait a
minute,” said Mac. “Hold on, please.” He covered the phone with his hand. “Honey,” he said to Katie, “this is private, okay?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him for a minute, then got up and left the room. He heard her trot up the stairs, and then her bedroom door shut with a click.

  He sighed, then spoke into the phone. “Sheriff?”

  “I’m here, Mr. Cassidy.”

  “What about a double suicide? You said double suicide, or a murder-suicide. What the hell does that mean?”

  “We got two bodies, sir, and it looks like—”

  “Whose bodies?” Mac said, although he knew the answer.

  “Simone Bonet and Jill Rossiter.”

  Mac slumped back in his chair and blew out a long breath. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Mr. Cassidy?”

  “Yes. I’m here.”

  “I’m wondering if you can shed any light on this for us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why did they have your business card tacked up beside their telephone?”

  “I’m working with Simone on a book.”

  “A book?”

  “Her autobiography.”

  “You’re working with her, you say?”

  “I’m writing it, actually. I’m a writer. A ghostwriter.”

  “That’s interesting,” he said. “So she’s famous?”

  “Sort of, yes.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said the sheriff. “So when did you see these ladies last, Mr. Cassidy?”

  “Saturday,” Mac said.

  “Working on the book, were you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did they seem when you saw them on Saturday?”

  “You mean, were they suicidal?”

  “Just your impression.”

  “I don’t know them well enough to form an impression. I’ve only met them twice. I’ve spent most of my time with Simone.”

  “You’re writing a book about her and you don’t know her very well?”

  “We only just got started a couple weeks ago.”

  “You must have some impression.”

  Mac thought about it. He’d probably have more insight after he’d listened to the tapes, but he’d decided he wanted to have all of them before he started so he could listen to them straight through, get a feel for the big sweep of Simone’s life, rather then getting her story in pieces. It’s the way he’d done it with all of his ghostwriting.

  “Simone,” he said to the sheriff, “has—had—a devastating disease. She was dying. She was pretty depressed.”

  “You know she was depressed, or she seemed depressed?”

  “Both, actually. She told me she was taking medication for depression.”

  “Okay,” said the sheriff. “What about Jill Rossiter?”

  “I don’t know. She seemed . . . normal. But really, I spent very little time with her. She took care of Simone. She was a nurse, I think. Can you tell me what happened, exactly?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said the sheriff. “What apparently happened was, Ms. Rossiter got Ms. Bonet’s registered handgun and pulled up a chair beside Ms. Bonet’s bed and shot her twice in the chest, then pressed the gun against her own head and killed herself.”

  “Was there a note?”

  “No, sir. No note.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “It bothers me some,” said the sheriff. “No note is why I’m calling you. It’s a loose end. Loose ends bother me. So I’m wondering if you can shed any light on the situation.”

  Mac hesitated. Then he said, “Suppose I came out there to talk with you?”

  “I don’t see how that’s necessary, Mr. Cassidy. But thanks anyway.”

  “No,” said Mac. “I mean, I want to. If you wouldn’t mind. I’d be grateful for a little of your time.”

  “What for?”

  “Sheriff,” said Mac, “I’m writing this book. Now my subject is dead. This, what happened, will most likely be the last chapter.”

  “You want to come out here, talk to me, like interview me, for a book?”

  “That’s right,” said Mac. “I’ll need to have the whole story if I’m going to write about it. I’ll need the truth of it. I’ll need to interview you. I’ll need to see where it happened. I’ll need your help, sheriff, if you’re willing to give it to me.”

  The sheriff paused, then said, “I don’t see why not. Maybe you can help me clear up some things, too.”

  “Yes,” said Mac. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “When did you have in mind?” said the sheriff.

  “How’s tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s fine.”

  “I’ll be there around noon. Would it be all right if we met at Simone’s house?”

  “Oh, I don’t know . . .”

  “Is it a crime scene?”

  “We got a murder as well as a suicide here, Mr. Cassidy. That definitely makes it a crime scene.”

  “Right,” said Mac. “I’d really like to meet there, though.”

  “Well, I guess so. We can do that.”

  Mac disconnected with Sheriff Roland Norris, reached up to the wall hook, and hung up the phone. He remained seated at the kitchen table and thought about it. He decided that he was surprised but not shocked that Simone had taken her own life. She’d told him that she was on medication for depression, and it didn’t seem to be working very well. She knew her time was limited. The doctor had told her that the disease would progress rapidly. She knew exactly what to expect. It wouldn’t be pleasant, not for Simone, and not for Jill, either.

  Still, it had seemed to him that Simone had hope, that she believed she still had a lot to live for. She was enthusiastic about their book. She was hoping to meet Jessie, her daughter. She liked being outside in the nice weather, watching the gardens bloom, hearing the birds sing. She and Jill loved each other.

  Mac hadn’t gotten much of a sense of Jill. She’d seemed devoted to Simone. That was about it.

  The sheriff had called it a pact. That made sense. Simone deciding it was time, Jill agreeing to do it for her, then going with her, joining her.

  Or maybe Jill did it on her own, seeing Simone depressed and in pain, not being able to bear it, deciding to put her out of her misery, shooting her while she was sleeping, then herself.

  Either way, they were both dead. He knew that at some point he’d have to figure out what it meant for their book. If there could still be a book.

  Mac shook his head. The hell with the book. He’d worry about the book another time.

  Right now he was thinking about Katie.

  Katie seemed to have connected with the two women, and especially with Jill. For the first time in a long time, she had seemed, however briefly, almost happy.

  And after what happened to Jane, now this?

  He went upstairs. He heard music coming from behind the closed door to Katie’s room. Wagner, if he wasn’t mistaken. Heavy, melodramatic music. You had to be in a certain mood to listen to Wagner.

  He tapped on Katie’s door. A minute later the music abruptly stopped, and then the door cracked open and Katie peered out at him. Her forehead was furrowed as if she hadn’t known who might be knocking on her door.

  “Can we talk?” Mac said.

  She nodded and opened the door wide for him.

  Mac went in. Katie sat on her bed with her hands clasped on her lap and looked up at him.

  “That was the sheriff in New York where Simone and Jill live,” he said. “He—”

  “What happened?” said Katie.

  He shook his head.

  “They’re dead, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, honey.”

  “So what happened?” She was sitting there on the edge of her bed, perfectly still, looking up at him without expression.

  “They, um, it looks like they committed suicide.”

  “Both of them?”

  He nodded. “I don’t know any details. Just that they’re
both dead. I’m going out there tomorrow.”

  “Why?”

  “To talk with the sheriff. To see what happened.”

  “But why? If they committed suicide . . . ?”

  Mac shrugged.

  “For your book?”

  “I want to know what happened.”

  Katie looked at him for a minute. “They wouldn’t do that,” she said.

  “Simone was pretty depressed,” he said. “She had a terrible disease. She knew she was dying.”

  Katie shook her head. “She was expecting to hear from her daughter. It meant everything to her. It gave her something to live for. Jill told me all about it. Jill was sad about Simone’s disease and all. But she was prepared for it. Jill never would have killed herself, no matter what Simone did. She had plans. She was interested in a lot of things.”

  Mac nodded. “That’s pretty much what I would’ve thought, too. But we didn’t know them that well.”

  “What if they were murdered?”

  “Who’d want to murder them?”

  Katie looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t, either,” Mac said. “Maybe I’ll know more after I go out there.”

  Katie looked up at him with big round eyes. “I don’t get it.”

  He nodded. He didn’t know what to say.

  After a minute, she said, “I know what you’re thinking.”

  He smiled. “You do?”

  “Yes. You’re thinking that I’m blaming myself for what happened.”

  “How could you blame yourself?”

  She looked at him. “It’s my curse. The curse of Katie Cassidy.”

  “Do you believe that? Do you blame yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” she said softly.

  Mac went over and sat on the bed beside her. He put his arm around her, and she tilted her head to the side and rested her cheek against his shoulder.

  “Are you okay, honey?” he said.

  He felt her head shake. “Not really.”

  “You liked them.”

  She nodded.

  “They liked you, too. Simone told me. They liked you a lot.”